Improvement in Perpetuity With Plated

About Plated

Plated makes it easier for Americans to eat and live better. They deliver fresh, pre-portioned ingredients along with an easy-to-follow recipe so that you can relax and enjoy the cooking experience. They have raised several VC rounds, have been onShark Tank, and are intentionally building their software platform aggressively. They aim to gain market share by offering a compelling, easy to use product that looks amazing and works flawlessly.

At 175 people, they have a digital product team of over 20 that is growing fast. They are determined to keep their progressive Agile engineering practices top notch.

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The Problem

The Plated team is energetic and smart. They have a new and ever evolving code base and as a result they are building up tech debt as they get their product to market. As a result, they are hiring quickly and pushing out new features even faster. All of this positive growth can come with a cost. And that cost is – when you get successful fast, your tech team can be a victim of your own success.

The Goal

Implement processes around code at scale

Continuous Deployment

Establish clarity on Plated's priorities

Become successful both inside the code and out

Increase transparency within the development process

The Challenge

Plated needed a technical mentor. Stride Consulting became that.

Stride Consulting sent a team of two seasoned senior Agile developers to co-locate with the Plated development team.

We embedded with their team, became a part of their culture and as a result became Plated’s true partner.

“We had a team that was largely junior and mid-level developers, and most of our team was new to Plated. We ended up growing the tech team extremely fast and as a result the team was new to each other and they were in a storming phase,” explains Josh Hix, the CEO of Plated. “We lacked authority and someone who could actively participate in technical debate and say ‘I’ve seen all 5 ideas and tried 5 others. Here are 3 ideas we should try and the pros and cons to each. My recommendation is that we try A, B, and C.’ Then Stride came in and stopped the endless debate.”

Technologies Used

The Result

Stride hit the ground running with minimal ramp up time. Our team added Agile expertise that Plated was able to seamlessly leverage at pivotal points in their business growth. We got to the root issue and adapted to their culture in a way that was welcomed. Stride helped Plated’s underlying agile and lean processes run smoothly through well-tested and refactored code. As a result, Plated had increased visibility of work, and were able to be their best both inside the code and out.

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“We were seeking a technology partner who’s truly in this with us for the long haul, someone who can fully integrate and have skin in the game, and we found that in Stride.”